New steering wheel is in and the noise is gone now
I guess they threw enough parts at it
The tech came out to talk t me after it was done and said that I should be more careful getting into the car and not hold onto the wheel as I sit down because it bends it from the base. I tried to explain that because I'm old, fat and short I have to plop my butt down first then just rotate in without ever touching the wheel but at 6'4" he just couldn't understand. The wheel was slightly torqued when I got the car though and it always rubbed a bit but didn't make the groaning noise until recently. Maybe the original owner was a road rager that beat on the wheel and was a big dude that tweaked it getting in and out
I didn't get the car new (14k CPO) so I didn't know what the wheel felt like when it was new and didn't notice the degradation over the last 81k miles since I got it. The texture is nice and the stitching color is vibrant
